Friday, June 26, 2015

All Hail the Cardinals

Ah, man, do the Cardinals look like a great organization. I went to Thursday night's game with a son -- and saw yet another humiliating loss. The same old story: no offense, mediocre pitching. The economics: I got in free on old fart's Thursday, but paid $32 for son's ticket. We each probably spent about $25 on concessions, so Loria plucked $82 from my wallet (and an apartment guy got another $10 for parking). Dan Jennings is now 14-22, according to Baseball Reference, compared to Redmond's 16-22 to start the season. The pitching is likely to get better pretty quick with Jose returning, but (as I feared before the season began) the offense is basically Stanton and nothing else. Look at those Cards: No. 2 in attendance (with 43,000 a game), compared to Marlins' 28th (with 21,000 -- a figure I'm certain is inflated with squirrelly accounting). And I'll bet the Cards price per ticket is far higher than Marlins. The Cards have great fan support -- and a wonderful stadium that's right downtown, near public transit, freeways and the river. Last year, visiting St. Louis, we had a short stroll from our hotel to the ballpark. Contrast that with Marlins Park, a thoroughly pleasant place that was dumped in Little Havana, far from downtown, public transit, hotels. At 48-24, the Cards have by far the best record right now in MLB. Yet, according to Deadspin.com, their $120 million payroll is exceeded by 10 other teams. Translation: Smart management. Deadspin has Marlins last at $68 million. Remember: Stanton's big payday years are a ways off. At the beginning of the season, Fangraphs gave the Marlins a 27 percent chance of making the playoffs. Now it's 3 percent.